1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to printer technology. The present invention particularly relates to a printer which prints by loading an interpreter program corresponding to the printer language of the received printer job data, generating image data from the print job data pursuant to the execution of the interpreter program and supplying the generated image data to a print engine.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical printer receives print job data through printer drivers executed on host computers, generates image data by interpreting the print job data, and thereby prints on print recording media. Generally, a printer receives prints job data in various types of printer languages. Consequently, a printer stores in a ROM printer language interpreter programs (hereinafter referred to as “Interpreter Program”) corresponding to each printer language, and, after loading into a RAM a specific Interpreter Program corresponding to the print job data received, interprets the job data and generates image data pursuant to the execution of the Program thereof.
As described above, a printer loads an Interpreter Program stored in the ROM of low access speed into the RAM of high access speed and thereafter executes the Interpreter Program thereof. Meanwhile, as there is a constant demand for accelerating the printing speed of a printer and lowering the cost of the product, a RAM loaded into a printer also has a set memory size to the extent of not interfering with the print processing. Therefore, when a conventional printer receives print job data in a certain printer language and thereafter receives print job data in another printer language, it could not process the data in the latter language until the processing of the data in the former printer language is completed. That is, a printer loaded into a RAM an Interpreter Program corresponding to the latter printer language after completing the processing of print job data in the former language and releasing the memory. Accordingly, in printers which accept various types of print job data from a plurality of users or application programs, there is a problem in that the latter processing had to wait until the former processing is completed and the memory is released in such cases where the printer language is switched.